Repurpose A Selfie Stick To Clean Hard To Reach Spots In Your Home

It's not every day that a sign of the apocalypse can be repurposed as a way to clean between the top of your fridge and the cabinet above. It's also not every day that you read that sentence. But while we're kinda kidding about selfie sticks being a sign of the apocalypse, there are certainly ways to use one to clean hard-to-reach spots in your home. Selfie sticks come in a huge variety of lengths, but most seem to be between 30 and 62 inches. That's lots of additional reach when you're trying to dust your ceiling fan blades or sweep cobwebs from ceiling corners.

The fun begins when you attach your cleaning rag or sponge to the selfie stick. Many selfie sticks come equipped with a standard camera mount, which is nothing more than a ¼-20 threaded bolt. (That just means it's a ¼-inch bolt with 20 threads per inch.) To attach, say, a microfiber rag to it, all you'd need to do is make a very small slit in the rag, stick the camera mount through it, then secure it with a wide fender washer and a common ¼-20 nut. For other cleaning supplies, you might be able to use your selfie stick's spring-loaded phone mount to attach a sponge or brush.

If you're ready to turn selfie-stick housekeeping into a way of life, there are some other ways you can use the ¼-inch camera mount to help out. A camera flex arm kit will help you get into nooks and crannies that aren't just far away, but are also at difficult angles. Just attach the bendy arm to your stick, attach your rag to the arm, and your mother-in-law won't find any dust no matter where she looks. 

If the washer-and-nut method of attaching cleaning rags and the like seems awkward, for a few bucks you can get a spring-loaded microphone clip that will attach to your selfie stick and hang onto just about anything. Since mics use different threading than cameras, you'll probably need an adapter. They're often included with the clip, but you can buy them separately as well.

If you're the sort of person who doesn't have a selfie stick, it turns out that you can easily make one from a painter's extension pole. All you need is a paint-pole-to-camera adapter. Use it for selfies for a while, and when the allure of photographing yourself pretending to do things besides photographing yourself wears off, you can also use this rig to clean under the stove and many of the other places you're probably forgetting to clean. And since you're already misusing painting supplies, combine your selfie stick with our tack cloth hack for dusting hard-to-reach areas.